Welcome to this research guide tailored to support the research you will be conducting as part of developing your impact gap analysis in ENT 303. 

Here you will find suggested subscription databases and resources as well as research strategies you may find useful as you work to understand and analyze the challenge your group has selected to focus on for this project. It is very likely you will find additional resources and strategies useful than what is described in this guide - you are encouraged to use your creativity and ingenuity at every step of this research process. 

If at any point you feel stuck or frustrated in your research process, don't hesitate to reach out to one of your research librarians listed on the left-side of the screen. We are here to help! 

The best research is a mixture of primary and secondary research. 

• Primary Research is when you collect and utilize information you have collected yourself and/or information from first-hand experiences. Examples include interviews or surveys you have directly conducted, observations, and direct experiences. Primary information can also be obtained from analyzing recorded/transcribed interviews, original documentation (like a financial report from a company), or artifacts. 

• Secondary Research is when you collect and utilize information that has been collected and analyzed by someone other than yourself. This information can be created by someone who was not physically present or directly involved with what is being described. Examples include newspaper articles, trade publications, published reports, etc. 

Do not jump straight to a solution without first understanding the problem. 

• The Impact Gaps Canvas (described below) is designed to help you think critically about the challenge (challenge mapping) and what has already been tried (solutions mapping) as well as spending time analyzing what is missing that could close the gap between the challenge and current solutions (impact gaps). 
• This analysis requires time and research. It requires sitting with the problem and examining it from multiple angles without biasing your mind towards any one solution. 
• The research resources in this guide will focus on helping you address the necessary secondary research required when challenge mapping and solutions mapping.

The problem experts are the people experiencing the problem. 

• When evaluating any secondary source you should always be thinking about whose perspective is being shared and what perspectives (or stories) are missing. Why might that be? How can you adjust your research strategy to find those missing perspectives? 
• Engaging in primary research will be essential to ensure you are centering the experience and concerns of individuals and communities directly impacted/involved with the problem/challenge you've selected. 

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of 17 global targets adopted by the United Nations in 2015 to promote peace, prosperity, and environmental protection for people and the planet by 2030. The SDGs, also known as the Global Goals, are an integrated framework covering areas like ending poverty, improving health and education, ensuring gender equality, promoting sustainable consumption and production, and combating climate change.

Example: Goal 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Image: United Nations; https://sdgs.un.org/goals

"The Impact Gaps Canvas came out of Daniela Papi-Thornton’s research and is a tool that can be used by anyone who wants to understand the landscape of a problem and possibly identify some paths to how they might contribute to a solution... 

The questions on the left can help you understand and map out the problem (who or what is impacted, what is holding the current status quo in place and who stands to be negatively impacted if the problem is solved, what other issues this problem is related to, the history of the problem, etc).

You can use the questions on the right to help you map out the “solutions landscape” (what has already been tried, what has worked and what hasn’t, how are these efforts connected and building upon each other, what future efforts are planned, etc).

In the middle, is the “Impact Gap”. You can explore this gap from the 30,000 foot level (what is missing in the whole ecosystems of the solutions landscape, what could connect up these efforts, what regulation might be needed, how can lessons be shared, what types of efforts are broadly missing, etc) or to explore the gaps in individual efforts more explicitly (why did these efforts fail, what gaps are they missing in more completely solving the problem, what parts of their model can be tweeked to add more impact for more people, etc)."

Image & Text: Daniela Papi - Tacklingheropreneurship; https://tacklingheropreneurship.com/the-impact-gaps-canvas/